Disconnection notice: Verizon workers in Greenwich go on strike

Neil Vigdor, Staff Writer

Updated 9:13 pm, Monday, August 8, 2011

About 900 field technicians for Verizon Communications Inc. based in Greenwich and neighboring Westchester County, N.Y., remain on strike, as a broader impasse over worker pay and benefits enters its third day.

Field technicians are responsible for a variety of tasks, from line repairs and maintenance to putting up new telephone poles and home installation of Verizon's fiber-optic television service known as FiOS.

Greenwich is the only town in Connecticut served by Verizon, which said it has a contingency plan in place to handle the exodus of 45,000 of its employees in the Northeast.

Verizon has a central office at 16 Sherwood Place, opposite Whole Foods Market, that serves as a main switching station for the area.

The New York City-based telecom giant says it was essentially put on notice about the possibility of a walkout two months ago, when its union-represented employees voted to authorize a strike in the event that a new contract wasn't reached. The most recent three-year labor pact expired at midnight Saturday.

"Over the past few months, we've been training managers and retirees to help us with this," Bonomo said. "The network and a lot of the systems are automated these days."

A representative of the Communications Workers of America, Local 1103, which is based in Port Chester, N.Y., contested Verizon's claim that the strike will have minimal impact on customers.

"With 45,000 workers across the Northeast off the job, I don't know how you wouldn't," said Joe Mayhew, the local union's business agent.

Mayhew accused Verizon of trying to remove job protections, outsource work to India and the Philippines and cut sick benefits for field technicians.

"They've taken a take it-or-leave-it attitude," Mayhew said. "We view this as a Wisconsin-style bargaining, trying to strip us of our voting rights."

Staff writer Neil Vigdor can be reached at neil.vigdor@scni.com or at 203-625-4436.